Piccolo, delicato, eppure incisivo. Una storia fatta di pochi petali colorati. In miniatura, come una casa di bambole. Deliziosa.

This was one of my favorite books as a child - I think it's what kickstarted my obsession with tiny versions of everyday things. I couldn't remember the title or author for years until my grandmother mentioned it in passing and I immediately went and bought a copy. As a child I just really liked the details of the dollhouse, but it's such a sweet story about homesickness and wishes.

I read this book together with my 6 year old daughter, and we both loved it.

It tells the story of a 8 year old Nona who moves from India to live with cousins in London. She is sad and homesick, and having difficulty adjusting to her new life.

A Great Aunt who lives in San Francisco sends Japanese dolls to Nona and her cousins. This inspires Nona to start a quest. She researches all about Japanese homes, gardens, and culture, and starts to plan a Japanese doll house. Her 11 year old cousin Tom helps her to build the house, and she begins to make friends in her quest to get the supplies she needs to decorate the house and make the furnishings. Little miracles happen along the way, and eventually she brings her family and neighborhood together as she completes her quest.

It is a sweet and compelling story that involves cultural adjustment, healing relationship issues, and figuring out how to solve your problems and challenges.

This was a sweet little story, and a good bedtime read for the kids.

I really enjoyed this. Ryley-age 9

We used to read in the car on long journeys. My Mum used to read, and I was back-up - especially near the end where we were all sobbing. What dignified little dolls!

Enchanting

This book helped me through one of the hardest times in my childhood.

Long story, but when we emigrated from Canada to New Zealand, we shifted around a little bit before moving to the Eastern Suburbs of Auckland. At school, once the novelty of having a foreigner in their midst wore off, I just didn't fit in. My determination to hold on to my Canadian accent didn't help. My sisters, both younger than me, shed their accents easily, but I stayed awkward and out of place.

So this story really resonated with me. Like eight year old Nona, no one asked me if I wanted to go. (although I didn't understand the huge distance we were going - my memory is that unlike Nona I was quite happy about it) Nona is quite desperately homesick for India as well as bewildered by strange English food and customs and while her aunt, uncle and two older cousins are reasonably sympathetic, seven year old Belinda is a brusque bully. But Nona's world changes when the girls are sent two secondhand Japanese dolls from the States (the third doll is missing from the parcel) The other girls aren't interested, so Mother says Nona can have both dolls and so Nona's learning journey begins. Miss Happiness (glass half full personality) & Miss Flower (glass half empty and the glass will never, ever be full again!) can communicate with each other and they watch with increasing hope, as Nona makes friends and learns about Japan and it's customs, so she can give her dolls a home they can love. But unfortunately one person isn't happy...

I was 10 years old again and cried right through this. I strongly recommend that you hold out for one of the older editions illustrated by Jean Primrose;

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- the delicate charm of Primrose's drawings add so much to this story and I gather that newer editions don't have instructions on how to make the doll's house (whyyyy???) I hope the new books at least show all the work and background detail that went into this book and how many people helped to bring it together.

To the joyless PC brigade who say cultural misappropriation - very sorry but there are children like me who don't fit into a neat & tidy box. Please allow me a happy childhood memory from a more innocent time. :)

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Although the presented details on Japan and especially Japanese spiritual, living and furniture culture are most definitely interesting and even enlightening (but I do have to wonder a bit if at least some of this information might not also be potentially culturally stereotypical), when I was reading Rumer Godden's Miss Happiness and Miss Flower, I was actually and personally feeling so repeatedly annoyed, so frustrated and emotionally uncomfortable that (and even though I do feel more than a trifle guilty regarding this) I can only consider a one star rating at best (almost a two star ranking, as the details regarding Japanese houses, Japanese cultural practices I do find most intriguing, but still not quite, as there are two main problems, two massively and personally infuriating issues with Miss Happiness and Miss Flower that have just and completely, utterly rubbed and still continue to rub me the wrong proverbial way).

As an immigrant to Canada from Germany (my family moved to Calgary, Alberta in 1976 when I was ten years old) and as someone for whom the immigration process was very difficult at times and required much adjustment and careful consideration, I am having huge issues with the fact that when the family (a British family in England) receives the two Japanese dolls, they basically completely create a "Little Japan" domicile, a totally and entirely Japanese dollhouse for them, and as such one that is not at all British but one hundred percent Japanese. Now do not get me wrong, I actually think that having a Japanese inspired doll house for Miss Happiness and Miss Flower (who are clearly described as being culturally homesick) would have been a positive, but as an immigrant who did have to adjust to Canadian culture and such when my family moved from Germany to Canada, I for one think that the dollhouse Tom, Nona et al create and build for the two Japanese dolls, for Miss Happiness and Miss Flower, should have really been a combination of both Japanese and British inspired culture, living spaces and furniture (which would have given the two dolls a feeling of home, of Japan, but would also be introducing them, getting them used to British life and traditions). For as interesting and yes as sweet as seeing Nona blossom whilst creating a typical Japanese dollhouse for Miss Happiness and Miss Flower, the "adapt to your country of residence" and the "embrace the culture of the country to which you immigrate" part of myself was and remains most uncomfortable with the dollhouse ending up being so one hundred percent Japanese in scope and feel (as for me, the perfect dollhouse for Miss Happiness and Miss Flower, seeing that they are now residing in England, would have been a fusion of Japanese and British, just like my own personal immigrant to Canada culture and lifestyle are a combination of German and Canadian).

Now all the above being said, I probably still would have considered Miss Happiness and Miss Flower with a low three star rating, had I found the British family to which young Nona is sent more appealing and less annoyingly dysfunctional. When I first started reading the novel, I did and massively so find the youngest daughter (Belinda) absolutely loathsome and anger-inducing, until I (very quickly) realised that she (who had been the youngest, who had been the treasured and I guess spoiled pet of the family) is now being consistently ignored by all and sundry ever since the arrival of her cousin, ever since the arrival of Nona (who also though is not being even remotely granted the emotional help and guidance she obviously requires to make the transition from India to England easier for her, who also reads as being very much at least emotionally neglected and her real and present issues with depression and acute homesickness forgotten or at least not really being taken in any way seriously enough).

Especially the parents (and even to an extent the older children Tom and Anne) are almost completely laid back and hands-off with regard to parenting, with regard to upbringing and thus, the two youngest, both Nona and Belinda appear to me as being rather sadly forgotten and ignored most of the time, with neither of them getting the emotional and psychological support they require and Belinda also not receiving the discipline and admonishments that her often outrageous and borderline violently lashing out behaviour requires (yes, Belinda is acting out for a very good reason, and she is definitely being left out and passed over, but not having consequences for her destructiveness and nastiness is as problematic as is the fact that she is no longer being seen and approached as the pet, as the little princess of the family). And while the fact that Belinda had most definitely been given the brush off and was feeling legitimately left out is finally (at the very end of Miss Happiness and Miss Flower) realised and acknowledged by the family, it still rather majorly chafes and bothers me that it is the oldest daughter Anne who notices this and not the persons who should have noticed and recified this, the mother and father, the parents, the two persons who are or should be most responsible for raising and nurturing their children, and their dependents (like Nona).

And therefore, due to the fact that the two salient issues mentioned and described above really and truly have both massively chafed and angered me, I just cannot consider more than one star for Miss Happiness and Miss Flower, simply because on an entirely personal level, I absolutely do vehemently despise much of Rumer Godden's featured narrative and that the dysfunction of the family in question is never really dealt with all that successfully (or actually not at ALL successfully). And while other readers might well and indeed love the Japanese dollhouse that becomes Miss Happiness' and Miss Flower's British home, for me, the dollhouse should most definitely have been a fusion of cultures and not an enclave of Japan in England (for as such an enclave, it is at best a curiosity and at worst, yes, rather a major textual and narrative shortcoming, as it seems to indicate and even support ghettoisation, the tendency for immigrants, refugees etc. to create their own neighbourhoods, their own enclaves within countries, with the resulting anger and social problems this often does tend to produce and engender across the board).

The story is aimed at the 8+ age group and features a young girl sent to England to live with her aunt, uncle and cousins from India. She is unhappy and shy and not fitting in, until a great-aunt sends her two little Japanese dolls for Christmas. Miss Happiness and Miss Flower are also aliens in this very English world.

Young Nona sets out to make them more comfortable by making a Japanese doll's house for them. She befriends the local librarian who helps her pick the right books and gradually the rest of the family get involved in building this miniature home complete with niche, bonsai and tea ceremony.

The real delight for any budding designer though are the detailed drawings and instructions at the end of the book showing you how to make your very own Japanese doll's house. A quick google also revealed a whole world of people who have made their very own Japanese doll's house inspired by this charming book.

Miss Happiness and Miss Flower was published in 1961 and has a few cultural clangers relevant to it's time, but the universal themes of belonging, tolerance and friendship make it all worth while.
Full review here - http://bronasbooks.blogspot.com.au/20...

This was an interesting book, dealing with social issues. I think children could easily relate to the characters and their circumstances.

When two Japanese dolls, Miss Happiness and Miss Flower, arrive in England, lonely Nona musters her wits to create a suitable home for them. As in The Kitchen Madonna, Godden draws us into Nona's research, so that we learn about the traditional Japanese lifestyle and get excited as Nona's work starts to pay off. Godden always adds a twist, though, and this one comes in the form a jealous cousin.
Found this lovely copy at the Strand on the 4th of July.